He said among the things fre­quently raised were the GST (goods and ser­vices tax), the price of petrol and the pres­ence of Bangladesh na­tion­als in Malaysia.

“So­ci­ety should not be­lieve what is be­ing cir­cu­lated in the so­cial me­dia as the gospel truth,” he said at a gath­er­ing with Malaysian stu­dents here on Satur­day in con­junc­tion with his work­ing visit to New York.

The event was at­tended by about 65 univer­sity stu­dents re­sid­ing in the east­ern part of the United States.

Ah­mad Zahid said it was not wrong to have dif­fer­ing opin­ions, but that the stand of the other par­ties must also be re­spected.

He re­minded the stu­dents that it was also their re­spon­si­bil­ity to up­hold the good name and im­age of the coun­try.

“If he or she does some­thing neg­a­tive that could dam­age the coun­try’s im­age, the peo­ple do not say that he or she is from Pe­nang or Gom­bak, for ex­am­ple, but from Malaysia,” he said.

He also called on the stu­dents to min­gle with the lo­cal com­mu­nity and to stay away from crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties.

Ah­mad Zahid is in New York to lead the Malaysian del­e­ga­tion at the 71st ses­sion of the United Na­tions Gen­eral Assem­bly. – Ber­nama